PHILADELPHIA — Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski's divided attention as he campaigned for governor and then U.S. Senate created a void that might have enabled his campaign manager, Mike Fleck, to take advantage of him and his position, Pawlowski's Philadelphia attorney said Tuesday in an exclusive interview with The Morning Call.

Fleck's job was to raise money for those campaigns and the mayor was a "tool" for that work, Jack McMahon said in the first extensive interview the mayor's legal team has given since the FBI raided Allentown City Hall on July 2. A successful campaign for Pawlowski was the key to getting more consulting work for Fleck, he said.

"Don't think that a person of [Fleck's] character wouldn't use that tool to be able to pull money out of people's pockets," he said. "Now the mayor is out doing the political and all that kind of stuff, and he trusts this guy."

As McMahon tagged Fleck as the source of the mayor's problems, he acknowledged that he expects Pawlowski to be indicted, though he can't imagine what charges the government could bring. He said Pawlowski was not involved in a pay-to-play scheme and the government hasn't proved one existed.

"There has not been any contract awarded by him or directed by him because of a campaign contribution," McMahon said. "It never happened."

Pawlowski has not been charged but has been implicated by three public officials and a developer who have pleaded guilty in the case. The officials said they were instructed by the mayor to steer contracts to his campaign donors.

PHOTO GALLERY: Mayor Ed Pawlowski's lawyer says his client is tired of being a “punching bag”

(APRIL BARTHOLOMEW / THE MORNING CALL )

Fleck has not been charged or accused of wrongdoing. He closed his consulting business the day of the FBI raid and moved from Allentown shortly afterward. Friends say they haven't heard from him and don't know where he is. He could not be reached for comment.

According to multiple sources, Fleck recorded conversations with Pawlowski for the FBI. Fleck's is among two dozen names on an FBI subpoena served at City Hall, along with his company Hamilton Development Partners and employee Sam Ruchlewicz. The raid revealed a two-year investigation into connections between city contracts and contributions to Pawlowski's campaigns for mayor, governor and U.S. Senate.

Pawlowski, who was not present during the one-hour interview with McMahon, was "shocked" to learn of the probe, is tired of being a public "punching bag" and has no intention of resigning, McMahon said.

"There will be no going quietly into the night for Ed Pawlowski because he didn't do anything wrong," McMahon said.

He suggested that if anyone was telling city employees to favor campaign donors for contracts, it was likely Fleck, Pawlowski's trusted adviser, campaign manager and best friend.

Shortly before the raid, Pawlowski grew suspicious of his friend, sources have said, going so far as to pat him down in an elevator.

H Street Strategies, Fleck's consulting company, operated with two arms. One side of the business managed campaigns for local candidates, while the other, Hamilton Development Partners, included a stable of private companies that paid him a retainer fee in hopes of doing work in the city.

Fleck and his staff introduced principals in those businesses to city officials and assisted with preparing plans for development projects. Many of the companies donated to Pawlowski's various political campaigns, campaign finance records show.

McMahon said Pawlowski was concerned by the intersection of Fleck's political and business clients before the investigation was revealed.

"He told him to stop it," he said. "In fact, what happened was, he actually forced him to split off his company. He told him, 'You've got to pick a bed to lie in. You've got to be a political consultant or a lobbyist.' "

In a 2014 interview with The Morning Call, Pawlowski defended Fleck's representation of both business and political clients.

"Anything that has to do with any of those clients, we don't discuss it," Pawlowski said at the time. "I make sure if anyone brings it up to me, I say, 'This is not our relationship.' "

McMahon said Fleck was not running the city while the mayor was campaigning, but he might have been trying to create the impression that he spoke for the mayor.

That was the case, he said, with developer Ramzi Haddad, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery for plying a man identified in court documents as "Public Official No. 3" with campaign cash, meals and drinks in exchange for preferable treatment from the city. As described in the documents, that official could only be Pawlowski.

Public Official No. 3 also was implicated by city Controller Mary Ellen Koval, former finance director Gary Strathearn and former assistant solicitor Dale Wiles, all of whom pleaded guilty in the past few months to corruption-related offenses.

Haddad, who also has pleaded guilty, might have asked for favors but he never received anything from the city, McMahon said, and the mayor never explicitly told him he would.

"It appears what Ramzi Haddad was doing was contributing based on a belief that was what you had to do, and he probably got that information from Fleck," McMahon said.

The federal case against Haddad alleges that Public Official No. 3 used "burner phones" to conceal his actions and had his office swept for bugs, but McMahon said that doesn't mean he had done anything criminal.

"If I was the mayor, I'd have my office swept too," McMahon said.

"It's a long-standing mayoral tradition," he later added.

Overall, looking at all the charges filed by federal investigators and the subpoenas that have been served on the city, Allentown Parking Authority and Lehigh County, McMahon said he's at a loss to find anything that amounts to pay-to-play corruption.

"The source of a lot of this information is coming from Michael Fleck, his friend and campaign manager and fundraiser," McMahon said of the FBI investigation. "This is a guy who got caught doing things. What exactly it is he got caught doing, I don't know, but he obviously got caught doing something."

The government, he said, is "hooking their wagon" to Fleck and "rolling with it."